"When China's feeling pinched, hairy crab sales drop and prices plummet," he explained. "At the moment, they're up 30% from last year to a staggering 680-700 yuan per kilo (roughly $105) or more, which suggests just the opposite. Record prices, to be sure, point to prosperity."

So, what to make of the fake hairy crabs that flood the market each fall, indicating demand while simultaneously pushing prices lower, as one vendor complained to NPR's Frank Langfitt:

"Everything is being counterfeited," a "crab fisherwoman with the surname of Xing, who sells crabs by the side of Yangcheng Lake in the city of Suzhou," said. "There's nothing you can do about it. And you can't control it...The price for our Yangcheng Lake crabs could have been higher, but the fakes ones keep the price the down."

Langfitt reports that the "market in counterfeit Yangcheng hairy crabs is 10 times the market in real ones, according to the Yangcheng Lake Hairy Crab Association," and describes the effort to dismantle the trade in fake crabs as "a Sisyphean task."

One "unidentified hairy crab retailer" who spoke to Shenzhen Daily said, “All the so-called Yangcheng Lake hairy crabs in Shenzhen were from Anhui Province. These were put into the lake temporarily before being sold.”

However, Taiwan's Want China Times reveals how nebulous the definition of an authentic Yangcheng Lake hairy crab can be. If a transplanted crab calls Yangcheng Lake home for at least six months, it can be sold as a genuine Yangcheng Lake crab.